Advert for the Crown Tailor Cut Dress Lining Company, Ltd

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For many men and women of the middle classes, finding money to spend on appropriate and respectable clothing was difficult. With the rise of clerical and other office jobs, the male breadwinner had to spend a considerable sum on his clothing. He needed black suits, waistcoats, shirts, ties, a bowler hat and at least one pair of polished shoes. After buying the clothes with his wages, there would have been very little left. His family may have had to buy secondhand clothing or mass produced items from warehouses rather than visiting dressmakers.

This leaflet advertises an alternative: modelled bodice lining. A customer would supply their bust size to the company, who would then give them a bodice lining sized to that specification. The customer would then cover the bodice with their own choice of material, creating a dress. This system claimed to cut down on a good deal of the sizing and shaping problems faced by manual dressmakers.